


Red

by CherryBlossomLesbian



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Tony Stark, Blood, Bucky Barnes & Tony Stark Friendship, Can be read as slight steve/bucky, Delusions, Gen, Panic Attacks, Ruptured Eardrum, Sickfic, it's implied they share a bed so take that as you will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28784316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherryBlossomLesbian/pseuds/CherryBlossomLesbian
Summary: His right cheek and ear felt a little cold as he lifted his face off of the pillow completely. He'd fallen asleep on his side, cheek pressed to the pillow.His breath hitched before he sat up fully, feeling a bit lightheaded, and looked down at his pillow to determine what exactly was on it.A large blood stain stared back up at him.OR: There's blood on Bucky's pillowcase, and his immediate reaction is that it's from somebody he hurt. Tony is left to help.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Tony Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	Red

**Author's Note:**

> Very loosely based on when I was seven and on vacation in Orlando and I ruptured my eardrum, which in turn caused blood to stain the pillowcase I was sleeping on. That was fun for my dad to explain to the hotel staff while my mom took me to the ER.
> 
> Warnings for: Blood, delusions, and a panic attack.

He groaned as he stirred awake, immediately aware of the missing warmth that was usually by his side in bed. 

Right, Steve was gone. Mission. His first one since Bucky moved into the compound a month ago, the first time he'd left Bucky alone. 

Well, not alone. Colonel Rhodes, Doctor Banner, and Stark were around. Wilson, Romanoff, and Maximoff had gone with Steve on the mission, somewhere in Italy. 

He glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table as he opened his eyes, reading '4:08am' written out in clear blue numbers and letters. He was pretty sure he'd fallen asleep sometime around eleven, so that meant he got about five hours of sleep. 

Not too bad for him. His average per night was an estimated four hours, and that's not even factoring in all the sleepless nights. 

He shifted in position, moving his head just a few inches off the pillow to take a sip of water, when he felt something...wet. 

Well, maybe not wet, exactly. But whatever he felt wasn't solid, and he was very positive it was soaked into the fabric of his cream-colored pillowcase. 

His right cheek and ear felt a little cold as he lifted his face off of the pillow completely. He'd fallen asleep on his side, cheek pressed to the pillow. 

His breath hitched before he sat up fully, feeling a bit lightheaded, and looked down at his pillow to determine what exactly was on it. 

A large blood stain stared back up at him. 

He screamed. 

He must've hurt somebody- why else would there be blood all over his pillow and a few droplets on the bedsheets? He couldn't remember hurting anybody, or even seeing anybody but Steve left, but maybe he'd gone back into the Winter Soldier mindset and somebody had come in to help him and he snapped and hurt them- 

Oh no, what if he did more than hurt them? 

His panic was cut off by the sound of knocking at his door, and Bucky felt his breath picking up in anxiety, heartbeat quickening. Somebody was here, probably to take him away, he was dangerous- 

"Hey, Terminator, just checking up since you….well, you screamed, wanted to see if you're okay?" The voice that came from behind the closed bedroom door was quiet but audible, and Bucky heard a hint of drowsiness in the tone. 

His breath was coming in short, loud pants now, his heart feeling as if it was beating out of his chest. He thought if he opened his mouth to respond he'd end up puking, so he didn't reply to the voice behind the door. 

"Okay, I can hear that you're hyperventilating, so I'm going to have to execute an extreme invasion of privacy and come in without permission because I'd rather not get chewed out by Cap 'cause something happened to you and I didn't help." The voice rambled, louder this time, before the handle of the door turned and a gentle creaking noise filled the air as the door opened. 

Bucky felt like he was going to pass out. 

A man came through the door, a gentle blue glow illuminating from his chest. 

The man looked around, surveying the room, saw the bed, the pillow, the blood, and the super-soldier practically curled up in a ball on his own bed. 

"What the fu-" 

"Please, I didn't mean to hurt them." He swore, pleading, eyes wide as the man looked down at him in confusion. 

"...hurt...who? Barnes, what happened?" The man asked, and Bucky's brain finally caught up and registered the man as Stark. 

"I...don't know, but I woke up and there's blood and I must've hurt or maybe killed somebody and I swear it was an accident I didn't mean to please don't punish me-" 

"Robocop, I'm pretty sure that blood is yours." Stark cut him off, eyebrows raised in puzzlement. 

Bucky choked on the lump in his throat. 

"W-what?" 

"I don't know if you noticed-" Stark began, walking closer to the bedside before he was right in front of Bucky's shivering form. "-but there's blood like, all over the right side of your face and I'm pretty sure it's coming from your ear." Stark reached out towards the aforementioned ear cautiously, and Bucky filled the gap with his own flesh hand, and he felt the same wetness on the pillow on his face. 

"I..." Bucky began, wanting to speak but finding no words. 

"You're flushed." Stark commented, once it was clear Bucky wasn't going to say anything. "I'm pretty sure your eardrum ruptured and you have a fever 'cause of it." 

Stark stood back over to the foot of the bed, and held his hand out, waiting for Bucky to take it so he could stand up. "C'mon. Bruce'll be able to help." 

Hand shaking, Bucky reached his out until it connected with Stark's and their hands were intertwined. 

Stark helped pull Bucky off the bed and onto his feet, and placed his arm over Bucky's shoulder to help stabilize them as they make the trek from the living quarters of the compound to the medbay. 

~~~~~~~~

He rubbed the alcohol wipe against his cheek, wiping up the now dried blood, as Doctor Banner began to flush his right ear canal out with saline. 

Doctor Banner said he most likely had a ruptured eardrum, just as Stark had said, but to get a better look he needed to clean the ear out, as there was too much blood in the canal to properly see the drum.

Bucky took deep breaths as the cold liquid filled his ear, feeling far too invasive, and then being drained out a few seconds later before the whole process was repeated once again. 

By the time Doctor Banner was able to get a clear look at the eardrum and was finished flushing out the canal, Bucky had managed to clean all the blood off his face and dig up all the dirt that was under his nails. 

"Yep, that's ruptured for sure." The doctor confirmed after shining a flashlight tool into his ear. "To be fair, if it wasn't, I'd have even bigger concerns. But this is okay. It's a small tear and should heal on its own. You also seem to have an ear infection that likely caused the rupture, so I'll prescribe antibiotics, and once those are done you should be good." 

"Thanks, Brucie." Stark replied. "Appreciate you doing this at...what it is, 5 in the morning?" 

Doctor Banner just shook his head. "It's good. Let me just get you the antibiotic and then I think I'll go right back to sleep." He said with a smirk. 

Two hours later, at 7am, Bucky laid on the couch in the common room with a wet washcloth draped against his forehead, a box of tissues next to him, and a juice pop in his hand. Stark said he kept them around for when his intern stopped by, but he stated that Bucky "looked like he needed it". 

"I put Tones to bed." Colonel Rhodes said, placing a fresh water bottle on the coffee table in front of him. "Bruce is in bed too. If you need anything, tell FRIDAY to get me." 

"I can take care of myself." He retorted, probably a bit too sharp, too harsh. Rhodes was only trying to help, they all were. 

Rhodes nodded. "I know. But if you need help with anything, tell FRIDAY. I'll be here as soon as I can." He repeated. "Try and get some rest." 

He shrugged. "I'll try." 

Once Rhodes left, Bucky paid rapt attention to the documentary on the TV about cheetahs. It was equal parts interesting and calming, and just as the narrator was moving on to how the cheetahs care for their young, sleep overtook him. 

~~~~~~~~

He woke up to somebody removing a cold washcloth off his forehead. 

"Hm?" He mumbled, eyesight blurry, his mind and body still adjusting to being conscious again.

"Hey, Buck." A voice replied in a whisper, one he instantly recognized as Steve's. 

"S'eve?" He slurred just as his vision cleared up, allowing him to see that Steve was, in fact, standing in front of him. 

Which is weird, considering the mission he went on was supposed to run for three straight days. 

"Yeah, I'm here." He confirmed, grabbing the water bottle on the coffee table and untwisting the cap. "Here, have some water." 

Bucky let Steve help him to sit up and drink a few sips, before he laid his head back down on one of the common room couches' throw pillows. 

"Tony called me and told me what happened. I grabbed the next flight I could." Steve explained, draping a fuzzy blanket over Bucky's shoulders as his eyes slipped closed again. 

"You're missin' mission." He mumbled, sleep threatening to overtake him once again. 

"Nat, Sam and Wanda can handle it." Bucky heard rustling as Steve spoke, like he was looking around for something, but Bucky couldn't see exactly what he was doing, and he made no move to open his eyes so he could. His eyelids were far too heavy for that. "It's better if I'm here, with you." 

A new washcloth was laid on his forehead, this one just slightly warmer than the previous but still having a slight chill to it. 

"You're still running a bit of a fever." He said, and Bucky thought Steve was just talking for his own sake, as if Bucky couldn't hear what he was saying. Even before, Steve used to talk to himself as a method of getting his emotions out, even if nobody was there to listen.

"Get some more sleep, Buck." Steve encouraged, and that was all Bucky needed to fall back into the grasp of a comfortable unconsciousness. 

~~~~~~~~

"Good morning, cyborg." Stark greeted as he entered the compound kitchen, where Bucky was nursing a mug of hot cocoa on the countertop of the island. 

"I wouldn't call it 'good'" He grumbled, taking another sip as Stark grabbed a cereal box from the pantry. 

It had been two days since that night, and while he was getting progressively better, he still felt like shit. He either had chills or was burning up, his ear was ringing like crazy, and there was still a tiny bit of blood being discharged from his ear canal. Steve was worried when it first happened, and he insisted on calling Bruce, who just informed them it wasn't out of the ordinary for that to happen. 

Stark paused as he was pouring milk into a bowl before adding the cereal- Steve had commented on how horrendous he'd found that to be before, and said something that was cut out by a sudden onslaught of ringing. 

He lifted his flesh hand up to cover his ear, as if that would help anything. The ringing was coming from inside the ear, not out. 

"Sorry." He apologized once the ringing stopped, after a minute or two. Stark was eating by now. 

"Tinnitus?" He asked. 

"Yeah." 

Stark nodded. 

Bucky took a long sip out of his mug and decided to bite the bullet, knowing he had to bring it up at some point and realizing there's no better time than the present. 

"Thanks...for helping me the other night. I appreciate it." He breathed out a relieved sigh once the words were out, impressed that he only stumbled once. He was still awful at vocalizing any emotion, especially gratitude. 

Stark just waved him aside. "It's no problem. Probably wouldn't have slept at all that night if not for Rhodey forcing me to bed once you were settled in. My sleep schedule owes your eardrum a great debt." He joked. 

It made Bucky crack a smile. "I'll be sure to communicate that to my right eardrum, specifically."

Stark finished his bowl of cereal, drank the milk down, placed the bowl in the sink, and waved before leaving the kitchen all together. It went by so fast Bucky couldn't process the events before Stark was all the way down the hall, meaning the conversation was over. 

Bucky didn't blame him. He was known to be awful at small talk. 

But, hey, the interaction went pretty good for the first time he'd actually held a conversation with the man, when he wasn't I'll and having a panic attack. 

He mentally patted himself on the back. He made acquaintances with a man he previously believed despised him, and all it took was his first sickness since 1944. 

It gave him hope that maybe, one day, he'd finally fit in here.

**Author's Note:**

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